not yer normal 4th

Hope y'all had a happy 4th (although I'm not even sure who "y'all" is anymore; it's so quiet in the comments I can hear bloggy crickets chirping).

Today was not the average 4th for us, at all.
Our little happy go lucky dog Riley....


...(the white dog on the left) was attacked by a pit bull this morning.

TheMostImportantGuy and I stayed at the new house this weekend,and today we woke up quite early. TheMIG opened the gate to the yard to pull the hose around so we could water the yard before the heat picked up. We forgot it was left open, and at some point, Riley was let out of the house into the yard.

He saw someone a guy walking their dog across the street, and ran across (almost getting hit), with TheMIG yelling and chasing after him. Riley ran right up to the guy with the pitbull, who was yelling at Riley to get away and pulling his dog backwards away from our dog. Riley was happy and sniffing and trying to say hi (even though the dog was clearly aggressive and the guy was barely able to hold him back---wherever was Riley's doggie radar?!), and Riley kept moving forward towards the pit to get a sniff and say hi. The pit lurched forward and latched on.

TheDogWalkerGuy apparently said not much more than, "So stupid!! Why'd you let your dog out?!" Meanwhile, his huge-ass dog has Riley's bottom jaw and part of his should in his mouth and wont let go. TheMIG is yelling, "What do I do?!!!" and the guy never says anything, but is just trying to hold him back. The pit is tossing Riley around like a rag doll in the air, even.

TheDogWalkerGuy's leash for his dog is a rope, and at the end is a big wooded stick covered in duct tape, so he's basically walking the dog around like he's waterskiing. He somehow gets the stick of the rope and hands it TheMIG and tells him to wedge it into his dogs mouth (yeah, right). TheMIG finds that he cant find the room in the pits mouth to shove it in, because his mouth is full of our dog, but he does find that the pit's grip eases up a bit when his balance is off, so he tries to get the DogWalker to help get the pit on it's side. I might have things out of sequence, but at some point TheMIG reaches in and cover's the pit's nose (brave!!) to cut off his air supply and make him let go. The pit loosens his grip, but then latches on to Riley's side even deeper.

At this point I am still in the house changing from pj's into work clothes, and I'm bottomless, but I can hear yelling and barking outside. By the time I pulled something on, got out of the wheelchair and onto crutches, secured the other little dog, and got out the door....well, this pit bull must have been latched on for at least 3 minutes or so. There was at least another horrible 2 minutes following that.

I came out on crutches freaking out and by this time TheMIG now has the stick and is basically hitting this poor pit in the face with the guy's big stick trying to get him to let go. I look at dog walker guy and apologize for having to hit his dog, and he kinda nods and shrugs as if to say, "what else can we do," but who knows. The guy never really said a thing. Except I seem to recall him calling his dog "Barkley".

There is blood everywhere (and if you don't want to see it, close your eyes and scroll down a bit, 'cuz I am going to show you TheMIG's shirt next ....and this doesn't include what was on his pants or the sidewalk, dudes):

Enough whacks in the face and the dog finally lets go. TheMIG scoops Riley up and runs for our yard with me close behind. He heads for a hose, I head for my purse and my cell phone and I call the 24 hour emergency vet place to let them know we're coming. Riley has blood on his side where he was bitten, but what's really bad news is that four of his bottom teeth are basically at a right angle, dangling out of his mouth. He sits when I tell him to, and he's eager to get in the dog crate I have in the back seat, and he's moving okay.

We're off for the vet in under 5 minutes, and as we're pulling out, there is no sign of the guy or his dog. Figures, I supposed.....but he didn't even come back later in the day, as far as we know. No note or anything, either. I mean, he doesn't know that we hold ourselves equally to blame. I mean, clearly our dog was loose, unleashed, not responding to voice commands, and (quite frankly) being a little stoooopid. But we also believe he should know his dog, and that having to walk a dog with a stick is kinda strange....and either way....we are still concerned about his dog and hope he wasn't hurt, and we have no way to find this guy, but he knows where we live.

But I digress.

We get on the road and get Riley to the emergency vet place. We do the intake stuff, and they tell us it's going to be a few hours and to go home. As we leave, I am feeling like it must be a good sign that our parking spot out front was yarn-bombed:



I haven't even had coffee yet at this point, so we stop at a cafe, and now I'm feeling like the universe is really sending me warm fuzzies, because that is yarn-bombed, too:



So. The emergency vet place has just sort of "put him back together". I have to get Riley to our regular vet for more work. This ER vet got him on IV fluids, pain meds, antibiotics, etc....and she sort of sutured his teeth back in place, but she's not convinced it's going to hold. She feels that part of his jaw might either need to be removed (but she didn't want to be aggressive by just removing it if it could be fixed by more surgery)....but she also feels that if he saw a dental specialist (which she is not), they might be able to wire it back together or something. We find it more than strange that she didn't take x-rays, and I really really feel like I gotta get to my regular crew.

Also of great concern, she said, is Riley's side where the pit latch on and tossed him about. She couldn't tell if the tissue was dying or if it was just really really bruised. She put in drains and whatnot. He might need more surgery to remove some of that tissue, but again, she didn't want to be aggressive if it might heal. I agree with this logic, but this is also a couple thousand dollars of "this all might need more work", too. Gah.

So this emergency place has him overnight and we have to pick him up before they close at 8am (they are only open during the off hours). My hope is to take him straight from there to my own vet, but I have yet to speak with their office.




My dad in the hospital 5 or 6 weeks ago, and that whole thing is still in process. Teeny the chihuahua had surgery on both legs 3 weeks ago, and still healing with movement restrictions. And now Riley.

They say things happen in 3's. Please tell me it's true. I don't think I can handle 4.



I'm sorry if this post is sloppy or mess, but I'm too wiped out to scroll back and re-read it, plus I gotta be up early for round 2 of doggety dog dog.
xo